A cracked palm is, perhaps, the least of the worries in the Volvo Ocean Race. At each stopover, the team physios and medics get nightmares seeing the condition in which they get back their sailors. From cracked bones to torn ligaments and concussions, there are injuries galore. A common ailment, Joel says, is ‘gunwale bum’, where skin pores get blocked and become pus-filled pustules.
Now what prompts a man to spend around nine months at sea, racing 37,000 nautical miles in the VOR from Alicante, Spain, to St Petersburg, Russia? “We choose this life because we would like to be crazy or different,” says Anthony Spillebeen, Team Ericsson’s planning manager. “We are guns on hire. Someone who sees your work and likes it, recommends you for their team next time. So your work and attitude better be the best. Otherwise how can the team put you in a racing yacht where the living space is only around two metres per person?”
While skippers are the ones who choose the crew, a good word does go a long way. A chosen team usually starts practicing around a year before the race. The practice period includes team activities on water and body building exercises, too. “It is not about biceps and six-packs,” says Joel. “There is a lot of pulling, lifting and dragging to do on the yacht. Add unsteady footing to it. You might need one hand to hold on and another hand for the activity. So the question is about endurance. It is about teaching your body to forgive, adapt and move on.”
Sailing skills are a given as all of the crew on the VOR come with excellent skills gathered from other races. Most of them have done offshore racing in Europe and Australia. Most of the elite sailors have done prestigious events like the Sydney-Hobart Race and the America’s Cup before doing the VOR. Most professional sailors sail round the year and shift base as seasons change. The oldest sailor in VOR 2008-09 is Magnus Olsson, 59. The watch captain on Ericsson 3 is on his sixth VOR and says that he has spent 54 months at sea for VORs alone!
THE WEEK caught up with Morgan White, the youngest sailor on the Cape Town-Kochi leg. Bowman on the Delta Lloyd, the Aussie started sailing when he was six and turned 24 on December 1, the day the Delta Lloyd reached Kochi. Why is White at sea when the rest of his friends are partying and chatting up girls in Sydney? He grins infectiously and says: “You go home and meet this guy running a chicken stall or a fish ’n’ chips stall. You say hi, wassup? He says, ‘Nothing much, mate.’ Six months later you ask him and he’ll have the same answer. Ask me wassup? I have a different answer every day!”
And this variety comes at a cost. A sailor burns around 5,000 calories a day, twice the amount normal people do. And the weight-loss is high, too. Sailors have known to lose up to 11kg on a leg. Says Michael Muller, 25, of PUMA il mostro: “Losing around 6kg on a leg is regular. It varies, especially because different people react differently to the food onboard.”All food is freeze-dried to remove moisture and help it stay unspoilt.
When THE WEEK went onboard the Green Dragon and asked for the galley (kitchen), press officer Lucy Harwood grinned, pointed at a console with a glass jar for hot water and said, “That’s it.” Cooking can’t get simpler—add desalinated water to the freeze-dried packets and leave it for around 10 minutes. The resultant meal is gooey and insipid. Dockside cynics say no team has been able to find a piece of chicken in the chicken meal packages! Liquor is a no-no on the yachts as it dehydrates the body.
Though no one is forthcoming about the money paid to sailors, dockside rumours say that Ericsson 4 skipper Torben Grael could be paid as much as € 16 million. That’s not surprising, considering that Team Ericsson’s reported budget is around Rs 310 crore. Spillebeen says, “We are not paid as well as European footballers or Indian cricketers, perhaps. But whatever is paid is in keeping with the risks taken. Moreover, it is a one time payment and we have to take care of pension and other benefits ourselves.” White says that elite sailors are paid their asking price because they are always in short demand. But what can compensate for the risks these men take? Sports physiologists say the human body takes up to six months to recuperate from a marathon race. Then what impact does an Ironman triathlon or VOR leave behind?
By Mathew T. George and published in THE WEEK dated December 21. See www.the-week.com
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